Dubai is not the best place to test the Pink ball though, it's very enclosed, so light isn't great anyway and it has the "ring of fire" lights rather than the 4,5 or 6 Pylons, so none of the shadow problems. You can't tell the light quality from TV but it always looked like the Red ball was OK with the lights on.

UAE or Sharjah would be better grounds to test the Pink ball in the Gulf IMO

I thought the ECB had been testing pink ball cricket out there in the season opening county champions vs ECB select XI for a number of years ?

From what I can tell that is just for six months and it only works on mobiles and tablets. I assume it won't cast to a TV.

I loved watching cricket from Aus but I'm not paying £20 pcm for it. I'll reconsider when the Ashes comes and if we are winning. BT keep paying silly money for sports whilst UEFA get itchy over the tiny ratings.

Ashes aside the debate over BT and Australian rights is mostly missing the key topic. Overnight tests will be a niche and fluctuations in viewing numbers (up or down) will only be from a low starting base.

The biggest interest point will be seeing how heavily they promote and what kind of figures they get for the Big Bash, across the subscription channels and BT Showcase

Sky got 1.9m viewers for MNF last night. I think BT have a peak of 1.6m for the Europa Cup final but that was on free TV. I think.

The recent Europa League final, which saw Liverpool defeated by Sevilla, drew a YouTube audience of more thna 1 million.

The match drew a total TV audience of 5 million, and a peak of 3.6 million.

That was according to the Guardian.

In cricket news, its now seeming very likely that no new T20 tournament will begin before 2020. Seeming they are looking for a Sky v BT bidding war

IDK what the peak was for the match yesterday. They obviously aren't going to share with YouTube though I do expect to see a big match go on SSMix soon.

You can't blame cricket for trying to create a bidding war. I suspect they'll be disappointed but we will have a clearer idea after the UCL bidding.

Match average was 2.8m and peaked at 3.1m. Biggest EPL rating for 3 years. Not far off general C4 Test audiences I'd imagine. I remember 2005 peaked at 7m.

I think you should see what BT have over the summer as it is. They are absolutely going to want to improve that. No easier way to do that than to get a product that is proven in getting subscribers. International cricket is absolutely that. I suspect ECB would want to stay with Sky as their pay tv partner but hoping that BT push the price up.

BT looking to pinch IPL off Sky Sports ?

Major non-television entities such as Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Reliance Jio were among 18 companies that have bought the Invitation to Tender (ITT) document for the next cycle of IPL television and digital rights.

The interested parties would vie for television rights for the IPL in the Indian subcontinent until 2027, digital rights in the same region until 2022 and media rights for the rest of the world until 2022 as well. The last date for submitting the bid is October 25.

The television rights are currently held by Sony Pictures Network India (SPNI) and expire after the 2017 IPL season. Star India is in possession of the digital rights and the overseas media rights, except in the UK and the US, all of which also expire after IPL 2017.

BCCI president Anurag Thakur said he was pleased with the response. "With the global trends of showcasing content on multiple platforms becoming increasingly important - TV, internet and mobile rights are up for grabs together this time," he said.

On why the IPL television rights for the Indian subcontinent were awarded for ten years, BCCI chief executive Rahul Johri had said the board wanted to replicate the current cycle, which gave SPNI the rights from 2008 to 2017.

"In our country television is very well established," he said. "If you look at most cricket tenders, eight years-ten years have been the norm. That's why we went for 10 years. The area where trends are changing very fast is digital, that's why we have reduced digital to five years."

Companies that have purchased tender
• Followon Interactive Media
• Taj TV India
• Star India
• Sony Pictures Networks
• Times Internet
• Supersport International
• Reliance Jio Digital Services
• Gulf DTH
• GroupM Media India
• BeIN IP
• Econet Media
• Sky UK
• BTG Legal Services
• BT PLC
• Amazon
• Facebook
• Twitter
• ESPN Digital Media

ITV4 will show highlights of the Bangladesh v England two match test series. The hour long show will air at 7pm nightly starting with the first day tomorrow.

Some really interesting names in that. It's hard to imagine BT or Sky having the financial clout to compete with the Indian channels for the worldwide rights, but if they could afford it, you'd have to think they'd made a tremendous amount selling on the rights in the various territories around the world.

Also interesting to see the likes of Twitter and Facebook there. Hopefully the potential reach in offering them digital rights would surely outweigh the presumably lower amount they'd be prepared to bid.

Plenty of Englishmen in the PSL teams this year. Wonder if it will stay on Prime?

https://twitter.com/MazherArshad/sta...23700212682752

It is great news that there are FTA highlights but I am just wondering a) Why they have picked this series to cover (given that a tour of bangladesh is arguably the least attractive tour) and b) why they are doing such complete studio coverage with pundits given that they didn't do that for the CWC/Ashes when they had highlights ?

Is this a good sign for future ITV cricket coverage? Hope so

It's probably dirt cheap, and fills an hour. But if it's watched in high numbers, then maybe they will show more interest in higher-profile series?

For whatever reason, I assumed that ITV would take the world feed and the likes of Trott and Vaughan would be studio pundits. However, they're providing their own (off-tube) commentary. Ed Smith introduced the programme out of vision and, after a brief showing of the toss and the teams, it went straight to the action.

What would be perceived as high numbers?

Channel 5 gets decent ratings for home tests don't they? Even though it hardly gets on my own radar isn't it the more watched of the two TV broadcasters?

wow never expected it to be off tube commentary unless they don't actually have the rights to the feed.
commentary quite awful really, Ed smith sounds like he is commentating on the radio, talking a lot and describing the action.
Trott doesn't really add much either.

Trott was in the studio for Sky today..

Looks like he found the time to do both (although I didn't watch ITV4 highlights)

ODI figures on Five - Final ODI against Pakistan - 700,000
Test figures - The one in the middle of August
Day 1 Thurs - 700,000
Day 2 Fri - 600,000
Day 3 Sat - 590,000

Test that started on Fri July 22nd
Day 1 Fri - 770,000
Day 2 Sat - 1,110,000
Day 3 Sun - 980,000
Day 4 Mon - 1,060,000

Sky Sports 2 in comparison - July 22nd Test
330,000
497,000
398,000
398,000

Just shows the difference between a game England win and one they lose

Ian Bell & Gus Fraser today for Sky.
Odd they dropped Trott after 1 day?

Wasn't it Trott on 'The Verdict' at 4pm with Mark Butcher?

Clearly there were rights available for this tour that aren't available for most others.

A completely wild stab in the dark would be that Sky waved at paying an extra premium for exclusivity for the highlights part of their deal, giving the seller the option to go back to the market with non exclusive highlight rights which ITV snapped up.


Appears they are commentating on it live as well, (as opposed to dubbing it onto the selected highlights this afternoon) - Vaughan tweeted a picture of him arrive at ITV at 4am this morning.


Yes he was.

Not necessarily live commentary though. They could still dub it on afterwards. I am guessing they are in so early so they can actually watch the action.